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Category: computing – Page 522

Chinese chip giant Tsinghua Unigroup publicly picks a fight with CCP

Tsinghua Unigroup Co, one of China’s biggest semiconductor giants and a key server supplier to the Chinese government entities is burdened with debt default.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) yet again finds itself in the middle of a battle with the private sector and tech entrepreneurs. This time over the all-important semiconductors. Tsinghua Unigroup Co., one of China’s biggest semiconductor giants and a key server supplier to the Chinese government entities, is burdened with debt defaults and undergoing rescue process.

Without naming the CCP, Zhao is promising to stand up to Communist Party leadership. In Xi’s enterprise-hating China, a private entity doesn’t simply rise out of nowhere and take over a leading semiconductor giant. And if any entity can dare to do that, it must be having the informal backing of the Communist Party.

Semiconductors reach the quantum world

Quantum effects in superconductors could give semiconductor technology a new twist. Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI and Cornell University in New York State have identified a composite material that could integrate quantum devices into semiconductor technology, making electronic components significantly more powerful. They publish their findings today in the journal Science Advances.

Our current electronic infrastructure is based primarily on semiconductors. This class of materials emerged around the middle of the 20th century and has been improving ever since. Currently, the most important challenges in semiconductor electronics include further improvements that would increase the bandwidth of data transmission, energy efficiency and information security. Exploiting is likely to be a breakthrough.

Quantum effects that can occur in superconducting materials are particularly worthy of consideration. Superconductors are materials in which the electrical resistance disappears when they are cooled below a certain temperature. The fact that quantum effects in superconductors can be utilized has already been demonstrated in first quantum computers.

MIT Researchers Figured Out How To Make Batteries That Are a Kilometer Long

The new fiber battery is manufactured using novel battery gels and a standard fiber-drawing system. In a press release issued by MIT, MIT postdoc Tural Khudiyev noted that previous attempts to make batteries in fiber form were structured with key materials on the outside of the fiber. In the latest development, his system embeds the lithium and other materials inside the fiber, with a protective outside coating, creating a stable and waterproof version. He said it demonstrates that it’s possible to make a fiber battery that can be up to a kilometer long and highly durable, having many practical applications. As Khudiyev puts it, “there’s no obvious upper limit to the length. We could definitely do a kilometer-scale length.”

The 140-meter fiber produced can charge smartwatches or phones, with an energy storage capacity of 123 milliamp-hours.

“The beauty of our approach is that we can embed multiple devices in an individual fiber,” said former MIT postdoc Jung Tae Lee. The team had exhibited the integration of LED and Li-ion batteries in a single fiber, and Lee believes that more than three or four devices can be combined in such a small space in the future. “When we integrate these fibers containing multi-devices, the aggregate will advance the reaggregate of a compact fabric computer,” he added.

3D printed nanomagnets unveil a world of patterns in the magnetic field

Scientists have used state-of-the-art 3D printing and microscopy to provide a new glimpse of what happens when taking magnets to three-dimensions on the nanoscale—1000 times smaller than a human hair.

The international team led by Cambridge University’s Cavendish Laboratory used an advanced 3D printing technique they developed to create magnetic double helices—like the double helix of DNA—which twist around one another, combining curvature, chirality, and strong magnetic interactions between the helices. Doing so, the scientists discovered that these magnetic double helices produce nanoscale topological textures in the magnetic field, something that had never been seen before, opening the door to the next generation of magnetic devices. The results are published in Nature Nanotechnology.

Magnetic devices impact many different parts of our societies, magnets are used for the generation of energy, for data storage and computing. But magnetic computing devices are fast approaching their shrinking limit in two-dimensional systems. For the next generation of computing, there is growing interest in moving to three dimensions, where not only can higher densities be achieved with 3D nanowire architectures, but three-dimensional geometries can change the and offer new functionalities.

Engineers produce the world’s longest flexible fiber battery

Researchers have developed a rechargeable lithium-ion battery in the form of an ultra-long fiber that could be woven into fabrics. The battery could enable a wide variety of wearable electronic devices, and might even be used to make 3D-printed batteries in virtually any shape.

The researchers envision new possibilities for self-powered communications, sensing, and computational devices that could be worn like ordinary clothing, as well as devices whose batteries could also double as structural parts.

In a proof of concept, the team behind the new battery technology has produced the world’s longest flexible fiber battery, 140 meters long, to demonstrate that the material can be manufactured to arbitrarily long lengths. The work is described today in the journal Materials Today. MIT postdoc Tural Khudiyev (now an assistant professor at National University of Singapore), former MIT postdoc Jung Tae Lee (now a professor at Kyung Hee University), and Benjamin Grena SM ‘13, Ph.D. ‘17 (currently at Apple) are the lead authors on the paper. Other co-authors are MIT professors Yoel Fink, Ju Li, and John Joannopoulos, and seven others at MIT and elsewhere.

New semiconductor design could extend Moore’s Law

“Today’s technology announcement is about challenging convention and rethinking how we continue to advance society and deliver new innovations that improve life, business and reduce our environmental impact,” said Dr. Mukesh Khare, Vice President of Hybrid Cloud and Systems, IBM Research. “Given the constraints the industry is currently facing along multiple fronts, IBM and Samsung are demonstrating our commitment to joint innovation in semiconductor design and a shared pursuit of what we call ‘hard tech.’”

Moore’s Law – an ongoing trend that shows the number of transistors on a computer chip doubling every two years or so – is now approaching what are considered fundamental barriers. Simply put, as more and more transistors are crammed into a finite area, engineers are running out of space.

Historically, transistors have been built to lie flat upon the surface of a semiconductor, with the electric current flowing laterally, or side-to-side, through them. Vertical Transport Field Effect Transistors (VTFET), by contrast, are built perpendicular to the surface of the chip with a vertical, or up-and-down, current flow.